What are some low cost options for psychotherapy?

NAMI.org has resources for sliding scale, low or no-cost services. Hospitals have clinics and charity care. Medicaid covers medications, but I’m unsure about therapy. Support groups are another option.

Some communities have sliding scale community mental health resources.

Georgia has Behavioral Health Services. Its taxpayer funded. Many states have government run mental health care services available. I can’t even count the number of people who had no jobs and no insurance that I saw when I worked at one. The therapists are people with Master’s in counseling and such and everyone gets evaluated by a psychiatrist. There is an option.

Just watch re-runs of Frasier

New York State has a mental health department in each county, each of which offers professional psychotherapeutic counseling for a sliding-scale fee. I know patients who pay $5.00 per session for excellent service.

Me. I will give you the answers you need.

You may not like them but that doesn’t make them wrong.

Honestly, I’d smoke weed.

That’s what I did when I was depressed having fairly massive panic attacks, without insurance and without a steady income. I got $50 worth, and it lasted me six months – treating my anxiety and depression.

Best decision of my life. And I wish more people would do it, and get on the legalization bandwagon.

I couldn’t afford to pay for the gas to get to an appointment, I couldn’t afford any services – even on a sliding scale, I couldn’t even afford bus money to get me there. There’s also the time needed to consider, just going to and from an appointment can take a considerable amount of your day. Even one of my doctors said they wished it was legal so people could treat themselves in their own homes and wouldn’t have to go through all the pain they were in while they worked out dosages.

Legalize it, let the government sell it at a fair price. It’s a cheap product with great medicinal promise, more income for our country, more meds for the sick. Where’s the downside?

Maybe, you’re looking for legal help for those in need, but speaking as one of those people – in what is one of the richest counties in the country who should have the resources available to those living within it – they don’t exist for everyone.

If you absolutely cannot afford any sort of payment, there are self help groups for just about every sort of affliction there is. And the power of a group for support and sharing experience strength and hope is a very powerful and healing thing.

I would rather see my tax dollars go to treat someone who is ill, than to support someone who is capable of working but choses not to for whatever reason.

You have to be so bad that you can’t get a job and become eligible for social security disability. It sucks. I hope we get a health care bill soon!!
The poorest of the poor are covered, but those who are trying to hold on to a job really have no place to turn.
My son could go to the ER to get a perscription but he couldn’t get it filled. (One med was $1000. per month.) After 3 years we finally got him on disability, but that is not the life he wants to live. He wants to TRY to work and get a job, but if he does he looses his benefits.

@Judi – that’s a crazy system isn’t it. It discourages people trying to have a normal life.
You would think some government somewhere along the course of history would be able to come up with some solutions that are more adaptable to real life situations.

The #1 substitute for therapy is Bubble Wrap.

@hearkat has a great answer. I am in therapy for grief right now and my counselor is doing it pro-bono. There are many low-cost, sliding scale, and free clinics available. There are also lots of support groups available which are always free.

@Judi I understand what you mean about being “working poor”. Me and hubby fall into the category of not being able to get help under many services because we fall just above the poverty line. However with mental health care we are lucky to get help and I haven’t seen anyone in our area turned away for this reason. Now with typical medical like your story ya we’ve had that problem. Sorry you have too.

Texas has MHMR, which is available to anyone on Medicaid for free, and on a sliding scale for those who have too much to qualify for Medicaid but are uninsured.

@asmonet weed brings on all those things in me that it ‘cured’ you of.

@RareDenver: Occasionally, that’s the case. But you’re in the minority. And at least with cannabis as a medicine you don’t have to deal with explosive diarrhea, cramping, nausea, migraines, light sensitivity, potential death and god knows what else. The side effects of pharmaceuticals are far more terrifying than a craving for Doritos.

And speaking as someone who has smoked a decent amount of weed, very, very, very few people always have that reaction. Most people who have negative reactions emotionally while smoking went into it thinking it’d be a bad experience, or having anxiety that a repeat of a prior experience would occur. I’ve never known someone who had no real reason for being panicked or paranoid – all of them were able to identify why they felt that way.

The worst unexplainable side effect I’ve heard? “It just made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great.”

I’d take that any day over the other side effects from prescription medications.

And for the record, I never said it cured me. I said it treated me.

@asmonet ; I am all for legalizing and taxing the crap out of the stuff, but I have to say that I am also one of the ones that has a bad reaction. I smoked it a lot for about 5 years then something changed and i got a miserable paranoia. It was like I had no since of time either. I couldn’t tell if 5 minuets had past or 5 hours or 5 days. I wondered if I would ever be normal again or if I had gone insane. I tried several times to try it again with the same reaction each time. I know that it doesn’t do that to everyone, but it is a possible side effect.
Good to see you around!!

Professional psychotherapy is of course the best option.

A low cost option would be to meet with your minister or priest once a week for 30 minutes for a few months. Maybe he or she doesn’t have enough time, but asking doesn’t hurt.

@asmonet trust me I have smoked plenty in my time but then in my early 20’s things started to change, I was no longer enjoying it but was still smoking out of habit, it got to the point where I really felt bad all the time so stopped. In the years since I have occasionally smoked a bit as I love the smell and taste but straight away again I feel awful.

I think I had a problem with it though, I was smoking well over an eighth of an ounce every day, the first thing I would do in the morning before even getting out of bed would be to roll one

@mattbrowne By no means is professional psychotherapy always the best option.

After struggling to find appropriate treatment for my son over several years I came up with a theory. Over half the people in the psychiatric profession went into that profession because they were nuts themselves and were trying to figure out their own head. The lower cost ones are usually the nuttiest of the nutty.

@Judi Now I know many many low-cost therapists that are quite sane and helpful.

Of course I know a handful that are nutty as well….
In fact I know someone trying to get their grad degree in psych right now, I know it is horrible to say this but I hope and hope she gets weeded out. She can’t help herself and is abusive to her partner, I can’t believe she wants to be in the field of helping others.

@RedPowerLady ; maybe it’s just my town. Why would a sane psychiatric professional choose to live in Bakersfield?

@Judi lol, I have no idea. It really could be your town though because in many professional communities your colleagues set the standard so perhaps in your area there is just a low standard and their continuing education credits may be lacking. I know in my area there are very pro-learning and get together to better themselves constantly. They are also very involved in community volunteer efforts on other levels so they are connected with how well the community is doing.

@Judi / @RareDenver: Perhaps I oversimplified. I understand it can happen, but it is not what my personal experience has been – generally, reactions are positive. And I understand that does not necessarily translate as fact to the whole of the cannabis smoking community.

Sorry about that. :)

I’m going to be sick.

@asmonet Over the past few years, research has strongly suggested that there is a clear link between early cannabis use and later mental health problems in those with a genetic vulnerability – and that there is a particular issue with the use of cannabis by adolescents. Source

@RareDenver Yeah, that’s crap.

@RareDenver might be on to something. Here is a picture of Snoopp Dogg before he started smoking weed in his early teens,

@avvooooooo – I meant the best option compared to certain low cost options. And the assumption is to pick a good psychotherapists. Not all are good.

@Blondesjon ROFL.

Most public hospitals or those connected with medical schools have mental health clinics that are run on a sliding-scale fee. You will probably be treated by a resident in psychiatry or an intern in psychology (who are capable of treating patients at this point in their training). They will ask you for proof of income (or proof of non-income as it were). If you don’t have a job, you can get treatment pretty easily. It’s those people who have a job and some benefits that have more difficulty because they can’t afford the co-pay or the prescriptions, etc.

As far as taxes go, I think that our taxes should pay for this, as they do now. It is our society’s responsibility to provide basic care (including psychiatry) to it’s members for the good of the whole society.